Point-Of-Sale (POS) devices often include a variety of integrated devices, such as scanners, scales, integrated scanners with scales, card readers with on-screen signature capabilities, and the like.
Historically, scanners that are integrated into POS devices are difficult and cumbersome to configure, which results in customer calls to support desks for assistance. Additionally, integrated scanners often require personnel to be physically present at the POS devices when the scanners are configured. Alternatively, scanners require a specific operating system (OS) application module for achieving scanner configuration, which means scanner configuration becomes dependent on the POS device's OS. Updates to the OS can require updates to the OS scanner configuration module, which means a single scanner may need multiple supported OS configuration modules because the scanner can be deployed to multiple POS devices, each having different OSs or different versions of a same OS.
These requirements of being physically present at the POS or maintaining an OS-specific scanner configuration module with the underlying POS OS also make it difficult to keep firmware upgrades to the scanner in synchronization with the scanner and its POS device software that interfaces with the scanner.
In addition, some integrated POS scanners support interfaced handheld or remote scanners connected to the POS scanners. This means that installers and integration support staff can have additional work beyond just updating a scanner's firmware or POS OS-specific scanner configuration module when upgrades or patches are made to a scanner.
Still further, retailers, which deploy the integrated POS scanners in POS devices within their stores, tightly control their infrastructure and networks. Thus, it is not an easy administrative task for scanner installers and support staff to obtain the requisite permissions for temporarily connecting staff-support devices to the POS device or the scanner for performing installation, support, and testing. Also, the retailer's POS device is offline and not available for customer transactions during whatever time is granted to the support staff by the retailer.